About time

From Rediscovering Western Civilization by Peter Berkowitz. Interesting reconstruction of academia's always insane assault on the rich tradition of the Age of Enlightenment of the West. Read the whole thing.

Humanities courses in America’s best universities are apt these days to denigrate, or even deny the reality of, Western civilization. Rare are classes devoted to transmitting Western civilization’s leading ideas; examining its continuities and breaks; and cultivating the independence of mind that Western civilization prizes by exploring the several sides of fundamental moral questions and enduring political controversies.

Yet without such a liberal education, it is difficult to appreciate the sources of American freedom and prosperity. Among the most vital sources is the conviction, central to Western civilization, of the dignity of the individual, a conviction that in the modern era has received most forceful political expression in the idea of rights inherent in all persons. To put Western civilization on trial without so much as summoning witnesses for the defense, as our universities like to do, is to presume without opportunity for rebuttal that villainy lies at the heart of the American constitutional order.

Indeed. Listening the inanities of academic poseurs is one of the burdens of modern life.

I endorse:

From obligations of intellectual integrity to the defense of liberal democracy and of the rights inherent in all persons that inspire it, the rediscovery of the West is a civilizational imperative.